Categories:

November 20, 2014 — Canada was once a country of farms. At Confederation, four out of every five Canadians were farmers. Today, farmers comprise less than two per cent of the population and produce a mere 1.1 per cent of GDP. Should it come as any surprise that the amount of farmland in Canada is shrinking, as well?

Last week, Statistics Canada released a comprehensive look at agriculture in Canada, bringing together the latest economic, geographic and ecological indicators. The most noteworthy observation: Nearly one million hectares of “dependable agricultural land” has disappeared from cultivation over the past 10 years, most of it subsumed by development around Canada’s biggest cities.

Despite its huge area, Canada has relatively little dependable farmland. Good soil and a friendly climate are hard to find. So it seems like good news that on a clear day you can see about half the best agricultural land in Canada from the top of Toronto’s CN Tower. If we’re to feed our growing urban populations, having food lands close to where people live will be critical to sustaining local food security.

Some regions of the country, like the Golden Horseshoe surrounding Toronto, have been blessed with an abundance of Class 1 soils. But an increasing proportion of the best soils in the Golden Horseshoe and in most urbanized regions of Canada now lie beneath sprawling housing developments, highways, strip malls and other infrastructure. As urban communities have grown over the years, agricultural lands and natural areas have far too often been drained, dug up and paved over.

Categories:

I can’t really tell if it was the “packed with pesticides” or the “bashing mom bashes good” phrase that finally made me realize what was wrong.

It wasn’t long after I became active on Twitter that I began to question some of my long-held assumptions about GMOs and “conventional” agriculture. I had always been a critic of GMO technology, based on a broad range on concerns and backed by what I considered solid evidence and sound arguments. But on-line I found a community of scientists, farmers, journalists and others who were passionate about good research, sound reasoning and logical thinking on agricultural issues. And their conclusions were often at odds with mine. Seeing their evidence, I was forced to re-evaluate and modify a number of my positions.

Categories:

Unless you speak French and have spent a significant amount of time in France absorbing the culture, you will not be able to pick up the nuances of French humour and satire of the sort found in Le Canard enchaîné, Les Guignols de l’info or, yes, Charlie Hebdo.

I’m certainly not able to do so — and I speak French, spent the better part of two and a half degrees studying French history, and for four years had a French French girlfriend to explain all the cultural references. All I ended up with was just enough awareness of French culture to appreciate the extent of my own ignorance.

Categories:

The Statistics Canada 2011 Census of Agriculture shows that farm youth are still leaving their farms. About 20 years ago, almost 20 per cent of farmers were under 35 and by 2006, less than 10 per cent of farmers qualified for this distinction. In 2011, only 8.2 per cent of farmers were in this energetic age category of enhanced mental acuity and physical stamina.

Let’s be clear that we’re not only talking about fewer farmers as farms increase in size. The point to emphasize is that as the overall population of farmers declines, young farmers are disappearing even faster.

Categories:

Shawville is abuzz with reports of a tame deer approaching people in the middle of town. (She’s turned up at the high school on more than one occasion.) We encountered her ourselves last Monday evening during a walk: she followed us at a discreet distance for about 700 metres before we were able to shake her off.

Categories:

We should all recognize by now that “feeding the world” is much more a logistical and political challenge than an agricultural one. As a farmer, however, I spend a lot of time thinking about producing food economically, efficiently, and ecologically. Conventional wisdom dictates that genetically-engineered crops are a vital part of the overall solution, while organic methods are nothing more than a way to fill a niche market for affluent consumers. Is that assumption accurate? What is it going to take to meet production challenges?

Categories:

Questionable Practices is Eileen Gunn’s second short story collection, her first in a decade. The stories it collects are motley and idiosyncratic, and toe an impossible line between the tragic and the screwball. They’re lively, funny stories with a bitter core, or maybe it’s the other way around.